It is well known that, at present, most of the obese patients admitted to Hospitals and Health Centers are not capable of moving on their own so they need to be transported in either special wheelchairs or stretchers inside the hospital rooms in order to access the different areas of diagnosis and treatment including surgical rooms.
For this purpose, it is customary procedure for specially trained caregivers, nurses, and stretcher-bearers to raise an obese patient of 300 kilograms or more by firstly placing the “lift sheet” beneath the patient's body. The lift sheet is just a piece of resistant and washable synthetic textile material with handgrips around the perimetric edge thereof.
Once the patient is placed onto the lift sheet, all the caregivers simultaneously proceed to execute maneuvers to move the patient until placing the patient onto the receiving transfer stretcher that is adjacently located. To this end, universal standards are followed, which in the case of very high weight obese patients require the presence of several especially trained nurses and stretcher-bearers standing around the bed, one at the foot and one at the head of the bed, and the rest of them on the side faces.
Some caregivers hold the handles or handgrips of the lift sheet, while the rest hold the patient's head and feet.
Once this action is completed, the order of transfer the patient is given so that, jointly and in unison, the patient is lifted, laterally moved and placed onto the adjacent stretcher.
As it may be observed, despite the willingness and expertise shown by the health care staff, this maneuver turns out to be an abrupt and rude maneuver seeing human effort limitation against weight and location of the patient to be transferred.
Once the patient is placed onto the stretcher, transfer takes place with the assistance of stretcher-bearers, one of them located at the front and the other at the end of the stretcher, which is moved from the room towards the halls and elevators until it reaches the area where the patient is subjected to diagnosis or treatment procedures (rays, tomography, orthopedics, etc.) or the surgical area where the above-mentioned maneuvers are performed again to place the patient onto the corresponding operating table.
Finally, once treatment of the patient has been completed, the patient must return to his/her room; therefore, the same transport and transfer operation as described above is required.
It may be asserted that so far no apparatus, device or equipment designed to carry out the same maneuvers that stretcher-bearers and nurses have to simultaneously perform to move obese patients is known.
Only some boards are known, these boards having perimetric handles, cranes, or ceiling-mounted tracks, which are not suitable for moving around the hospital.
All these cases are related to auxiliary equipment or means that are not suitable for performing synchronized work and effort necessary to transport and transfer a hospitalized obese patient.